I’m a big believer in the potential of integrating VOIP technology with business applications, as you may have gathered if you read my recent post on Asterisk and Adhearsion. However, right now I see most of that potential reserved for businesses with the need (and cash) for an on-site PBX system. Microbusinesses, small businesses, and freelancers are largely left out of the game. I don’t think it has to stay this way for long though. Let me explain.
In a post back in June, I mentioned a company/service called GrandCentral that gives you a phone number you set to ring your mobile, office, and home phones depending on who’s calling. They’ve also got a ton of other features too, that help to put you in control of your phone calls and voice mails.
Ok, I’ve told you all of this before, right? Well since I last mentioned them, GrandCentral was acquired by Google. So far, there haven’t been many public changes, but these acquisitions tend to take some time. One new thing I’m hoping to see: A REST API for GrandCentral.
Google has web service APIs for most of their products, so adding one for the Google version of GrandCentral isn’t a stretch. Personally, I’d love to try mashing it up with a light-weight CRM like Highrise so that I could automatically kick-off phone calls to people and pull in call histories as notes for my contacts.
I hope we’ll see something from Google and GrandCentral by early next year. I can’t wait to see where they’re taking this service!